The Home of Australian Craft Beer

Kooinda Brewery Brewery

Proof that size doesn't matter. In a shed at the bottom of a driveway in Melbourne's outer suburbs, with tanks cooled by water from the backyard swimming pool, began the story of Kooinda – a tiny brewery producing a big, big beer.

In the middle of the last decade, a group of mates decided their home brewing skills were worthy of a wider audience and spent their spare time over several years amassing, designing and building a brewery with the help of friends and family. Finally – having produced six kids between them in the meantime – they secured a license and released the first batch of their full-bodied, richly malty and highly hopped Pale Ale in 2008.

Kooinda later moved its operation to an industrial unit in the north of Melbourne, since when the founders have left in stages and new owners have taken up the reins. The move allowed the brewery to convert part of its warehouse into a brewery bar, complete with occasional live music, a big screen TV often showing major sporting events, and plenty of seating, from comfy old sofas to tables covered in brewery paraphernalia. Opening hours are limited due to licensing constraints, but it's a great place to sample a wide range of their beers as fresh as can be.

In 2016, the new owners undertook a total brand refresh and also took the decision to outsource the brewing of its core beers to BrewPack, allowing the brewers in Heidelberg West to focus on creating new and experimental releases.

The Regulars

Talk about doing things arse about face...! First they take their witbier and rack it over raspberries. Then they discover a new fruit called a karakaberry they like the sound of and rack the raspberry witbier over that too. Then finally, they decide to give us the chance to taste the witbier as nature intended, virginal and fruit free. And well worth the wait it is too. Set to be the second full time release from the brewery, it's towards the golden end of the colour scale you'd expect from such ···
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There's nothing like announcing yourselves on the map with a bang. And that's what the guys at Kooinda did. Not content with testing the market with an easy-drinking, inoffensive first beer, they came roaring out of the blocks with a big, ballsy American style Pale Ale. Boasting a hefty hop aroma from the moment it's poured, their beer is a rich golden amber, full of toffee and caramel body and finishing with a firm, lip-smacking bitterness. It won them an instant cult following and has been refined ···
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Golden

Style

US Pale Ale

Strength

5%

The Specials

Tapped Fri Mar 11 2016

One of the 2016 Australian hop harvest season's first wet hop ales to be released is the first beer from new brewing company Yellingbo. Launched by Brad Merritt of Oscar's Alehouse, it features a rather large amount of hops from the bines he has planted on his farm in the hills east of Melbourne – which you can read about in our article here – and has been brewed in collaboration with Kooinda.
The brewers added 33kg of wet hops – mostly of rare variety Victoria – to the fermenters and tell ···
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Tapped Thu Jan 28 2016

The past year has been a fairly seismic affair for Kooinda. During 2015, the last of the brewery's founders departed, leaving a new team in place. By that stage, the new brewers and management were already working on reshaping the brewery's range and changing some of the existing recipes – a process not helped when one of them found himself stranded outside Australia for a while due to unforeseen visa issues... At the same time, new beers such as the Inkblot Salted Oatmeal Stout found favour with ···
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Tapped Tue Feb 3 2015

When new owners stepped in at Melbourne's Kooinda, they set about revisiting the existing beers and working on new ones. The first two new beers to come out (other than reworked versions of the Pale and Golden) were a bit of both. The Half Nelson is a "small IPA" or hopped up midstrength (or whatever you like to call it) that crams lots of New World hops (including Nelson Sauvin) into a mere 3.5 percent beer with just enough malt sweetness to hold the bitterness in check.The first batch ···
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Tapped Thu Nov 28 2013

The Sideshow Brewers project, which saw home brewer Clyde D'Angelis use his mate's brewery at Kooinda to produce the Ticketbooth Pale Ale, was something that came as if from nowhere. The beer appeared, found favour and was suddenly flying off shelves around Melbourne (and faring well in our Pale Ale Blind Tasting). For Christmas, the two breweries have joined forces to create something special and have even given it a nice punny name. Decembeer is a festive limited edition spiced brown ale, brewed ···
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Tapped Sat Nov 17 2012

From the word go, the brewers at Kooinda have left people in no doubt that they like hops. OK, so they've got the likes of a porter and witbier on their roster now, but when they launched their first beer it was an American style pale ale that stood out from the crowd with its hop forward punch. Since then, they've released a hugely popular black IPA only matched for in-yer-face ferocity by the Moylan's / Ní¸gne í? Good Beer Week collaboration Our Dark Secret. And now they're playing with another ···
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Tapped Fri Jul 27 2012

Hot on the heels of their Milk Porter comes another new release from Kooinda - and it's another beer designed for quaffing in these cooler times. Their take on a traditional English red ale is as it should be: plenty of rich, sweet toffee and caramel malts countered by the subtle earthy aromas and distinctive bitterness of British hops, in this case Fuggles and Goldings. With interest in British ales seemingly on the rise (a move by some away from big US-inspired hoppy ales or the impact of the Jubilympics ···
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Tapped Fri Jul 13 2012

A beer trialled by the Kooi boys last winter finally takes its proper bow. The Milk Porter is the first of two winter seasonals coming your way with a Red Ale following in the next week or so. Very much a winter quaffer, the Milk Porter is a deeply dark number that leans more towards the rich and chocolatey than the roasty, coffee side of things, with the addition of lactose giving the beer an extra touch of sweetness. Hop aroma, flavour and bitterness are subdued, resulting in a beer you'll find ···
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Tapped Mon Aug 15 2011

If there was one thing the mythical Nordic hall of Valhalla wasn't short of (other than slain warriors) it was booze. There are references in literature to a mead produced from a goat's udders on which the inhabitants of the hall would drink, but thankfully this newie from Kooi isn't goat udder mead. Nope, instead it's a golden ale of the sort they believe worthy warriors would have wanted to quench their battlefield thirst upon arrival. It's also the first Kooinda beer that could be described as ···
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Tapped Tue Jun 7 2011

Having launched themselves upon the world in 2008 with a first beer that pulled no punches, the Kooinda crew's decision to release a raspberry witbier when invited to make a beer for the first Great Australian Beer SpecTAPular back in February surprised a few who were expecting another big hitter. Well, those seeking a fresh smack in the chops from the northern Melbourne brewers needn't wait any longer. Nope, because here comes a Black IPA made with nothing but Nelson Sauvin hops (hence them naming ···
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Tapped Thu Apr 21 2011

Does the fact that we've never tasted a karakaberry - a blackberry hybrid only recently developed in New Zealand - put us at a disadvantage when sampling a beer that features them? Given the vast majority of the human world hasn't even heard of the fruit, we'd suggest not, and given a sampling panel containing a number of Aussie brewers gave it the thumbs up, who cares? The latest variant on Kooinda's witbier was racked over raspberries for a week before being transferred to a tank containing karakaberries ···
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Tapped Thu Feb 24 2011

The beers made specially for the Great Australian Beer SpecTAPular are making their way onto taps now, including this, only the second beer ever released commercially by the Kooinda crew. Using a faithful creation of the Belgian witbier style as their basis, with citrus and coriander to the fore, they then racked the beer over raspberries to create a wonderfully refreshing, softly sweet beer perfect for summer. Whether this - or at least the witbier minus the raspberries - becomes a permanent addition ···
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The Crafty Pint is an independent online magazine and resource for anyone interested in craft beer in Australia. We bring an honest, old-fashioned journalistic approach to beer's brave new world, telling stories because they're worth telling not because someone is paying us to write them.

Like many of the people who have changed the face of beer in Australia, we believe in authenticity, integrity, enjoyment and love. We hope to play a role in helping good beer, brewed by good people, find its way into the hands of more drinkers.